Trial begins in Ettrick murder case

Wednesday

Mar 31, 2010 at 12:01 AMSep 9, 2014 at 4:45 PM

CHESTERFIELD - The trial for one of the two men charged with the slaying of Ettrick resident Larry D. Darden opened yesterday in Circuit Court.Scott D. Tyler, 27, pleaded not guilty to three charges, including capital murder, robbery and use of a firear

CHESTERFIELD - The trial for one of the two men charged with the slaying of Ettrick resident Larry D. Darden opened yesterday in Circuit Court.

Scott D. Tyler, 27, pleaded not guilty to three charges, including capital murder, robbery and use of a firearm in commission of a robbery.

A second man, William E. Rives, 27, faces the same charges when he goes to trial next week.

Prosecutors say it was Tyler who allegedly pulled the trigger and shot Darden, 26, in his Ettrick home in October 2008.

Rives was the prosecution's key witness yesterday. Rives made no secret of the fact that he is hoping for a reduction of his own charges, "or something like that," as he said in open court yesterday.

Tyler, who last lived at Martingale Road in Colonial Heights, has a long criminal record, showing no less than 15 convictions, many of them misdemeanors. In 2002, he was charged and convicted for identity fraud and forging a driver's license, and was sentenced to 10 years in jail, with six years and six months suspended, according to court records.

After being released from jail, Tyler began dealing cocaine and marijuana, according to court records. He was arrested in 2007 and served more time before being released on probation.

Tyler did not take the stand yesterday and did not show emotion to the testimony that was given. On numerous occasions, he smiled at female students from Virginia State University, who were in the audience to follow the trial.

Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Thomas McKenna built his case against Tyler before Circuit Court Judge T.J. Hauler and a jury of six men and six women.

McKenna told jurors that in the early morning of Oct. 15, 2008, Tyler killed Darden in the attempt to retrieve drug money from him.

"Both men were in the drug trade," McKenna said. "Tyler had bought 9 ounces of cocaine from Darden, for which he paid $9,400."

Prosecutors believe that Tyler had not been happy with the quality of the cocaine which he bought.

"He said that it was garbage, and that he wanted to get his bread back," McKenna said, using the defendant's street slang.

Early on the day of the murder, Tyler allegedly called Rives and asked him to get a car and drive him because he had to take care of some family business. Rives testified yesterday that Tyler often paid him to drive him from place to place.

McKenna had a label for Rives's job. "He was Tyler's flunky," he said.

Rives asked to borrow his cousin's car, and the two men took her to John Tyler Community College, where she attended school.

"After that, I asked him where he wanted to go, and he said to take him to Chesterfield Avenue," Rives said. "I didn't even know where that was, so he told me to just drive."

The two men arrived at the address between 8:30 and 9 a.m. Rives said that he parked "one and a half houses away" from the home where Darden lived with his brother.

"He [Tyler] knocked at the door and walked in," Rives said. "I sat there maybe five to 10 minutes and he came back out, and he had a bag of clothes in it and another clear plastic bag."

Rives said that Tyler told him to drive. In the car, Tyler went through the items in the bag and pulled out some money and drugs.

"He said it was about $900 and a quarter ounce of cocaine," Rives said. He said that he saw Tyler put a .45-caliber pistol underneath the passenger seat - a gun that Rives had seen before and had held at a friend's house.

Rives said it was then that Tyler told him that he killed someone.

"He said that he had to do it," Rives said. "I didn't pay him no mind because I didn't think he was serious." Rives later disposed of the bags with Darden's belongings in various Dumpsters.

Larry Darden's mother Linda and his older sister Omissa found his body in the evening, after he had not responded to phone calls throughout the day and had not opened his door.

"I had a bad feeling, because we talked every day," Linda Darden told the jury yesterday.

"We noticed that no lights were on and that the door was closed but unlocked," Linda Darden said.

She entered the house, walked past the room where Darden's daughter often spent the night, into her son's bedroom. She found him kneeling on the floor, in a fetal position, with his shirt pulled up and a bullet hole in the back of his head.

"I touched his back, and he was cold," Linda Darden said, sobbing. "I don't remember anything else because I went into shock."

Sgt. P.J. Cimbal of the Chesterfield County Police Department was the first to arrive after Omissa Darden called dispatch.

"In the door of the house, I found two females who were hysterical," he said. "It was the mother and the sister, and they were crying."

Cimbal waited for back-up and then secured the house.

"There was nothing that indicated that a struggle took place," he said. "We found the victim in kneeling position, face down, his hands under his head, and there was a pool of blood," Cimbal said. "The blood had not dried up yet, which indicated that he could not have been dead for a very long time."

Rives was arrested in Richmond the next day on an outstanding traffic charge. Investigators soon linked him to Darden's murder because his DNA matched the DNA samples collected on the handle of a .45-caliber gun that police found at a house of a friend where Rives often stayed.

Initially, Rives denied his involvement with the killing, but facing capital murder charges, he soon told police that Tyler had shot Darden and that he had been the driver. Tyler was arrested 10 days after Rives and also charged with capital murder.

Forensic experts linked the gun to both Tyler and Rives.

"There is a 1:65,000 chance that an African-American other than Mr. Tyler contributed to the DNA on the gun," said Forensic Scientist Elizabeth Ballard.

To prosecutors, that evidence was enough to charge Tyler as the prime suspect.

But Tyler's attorney, Greg Sheldon, laid out a series of doubts in the prosecutor's version of events.

First, Tyler's cousin could not say for sure that it had been Oct. 15 when Tyler had asked to borrow her car. Then Sheldon reminded the jury that the DNA samples are not 100 percent reliable and that Ballard could not confirm that Tyler had indeed handled the gun.

The exact time of Darden's death is also not known, and Darden's mother said that the door to her son's house had been locked when she checked on him the first time that day; later she had found the door unlocked.

Sheldon spent most of his time attacking the credibility of the prosecutor's key witness. In interviews with investigators, Rives had changed his story twice. Numerous phone calls had been made from Tyler's cell phone even after he had destroyed it and thrown it out of the car window, according to Rives.

Rives also said that he and Tyler were at a restaurant in Richmond in the early afternoon of Oct. 15, but later stated that he had dropped Tyler off at his probation officer in Dinwiddie County around that time.

In spite of these inconsistencies and Sheldon's attempt to break the witness, Rives kept his cool and did not seem nervous responding to the attorney's questions.

The trial resumed at 9 a.m. Judge Hauler set a trial date of May 19 for additional charges of use of a firearm in commission of a felony and possession of cocaine.

- Markus Schmidt may be reached at 722-5172 or mschmidt@progress-index.com.

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